Subject:
|
Re: PCisms (was :Re: Yet Another Episode 1 Question)
|
Newsgroups:
|
lugnet.off-topic.debate
|
Date:
|
Mon, 17 Apr 2000 21:33:01 GMT
|
Highlighted:
|
(details)
|
Viewed:
|
785 times
|
| |
|
|
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Larry Pieniazek writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler writes:
> > In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Larry Pieniazek writes:
> > > As I've said before, no one has a right not to be offended...
> >
> > He-hee! I think I misread this the first time you mentioned it, and I was
> > really confused. I thought: "Gee, I'm 'not offended' many times a day--I'd
> > hate for someone to take that away from me!"
> > **grammar geek warning***
> > I suppose I was failing to identify your transitive use of "offended," • seeing
> > it instead as reflexive. 8^)
>
> Point taken, that isn't the greatest construct, is it?
>
> Can you offer a rewrite that conveys the desired meaning (there may be things
> that you find offensive out there, and if you encounter them, you might indeed
> be offended by them, but as long as no one else is having their rights
> violated, you aren't either and if you take offense, that's your
> business/problem, not a metric that everyone else has to heed so that you get
> to go through life without ever being offended by anything... <whew>)
>
> ++Lar
>
> FUT lugnet.off-topic.geek.grammar (if we had one)
> FUT lugnet.off-topic.fun (actually)
Maybe how Voltaire said it, which is as far from political correctness as I
think you can get.
"I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to my death
your right to say it."
To me, this allows that racism and bigotry (negative prejudice, thou shalt not
think well of someone), as well as political correctness (positive prejudice,
thou shalt not think ill of someone) will both exist, and are protected speech.
However, it also implies that I have the right not only to think differently
than you, but to voice this difference of opinion.
Without a doubt, the most important part of this quote to me is the assertion
of the human right to speak freely, and that it is a violation of a fundamental
human right to censor speech.
What this means to me in practice is that legal restrictions on speech should
be limited to that speech which poses a clear and present physical danger to
the general populace.
Two examples of limitations on speech which in my eyes meet this criteria
include yelling "fire" in a crowded theater (inciting panic), and rallying
people together to perform a lynching (inciting murder).
There is a lot of speech which is offensive to people. But if I take away your
right to say offensive things, I not only keep myself from learning how you
feel (since thought can't be legislated away), but I open the door to you
restricting my own right to speak.
Jason
|
|
Message is in Reply To:
52 Messages in This Thread:
  
  
- Entire Thread on One Page:
- Nested:
All | Brief | Compact | Dots
Linear:
All | Brief | Compact
|
|
|
|
